The RAR format is proprietary, so it’s no surprise that Mac systems don’t come with a built-in utility for handling it.

As such, it’s still important to know how to handle RAR files. The 7-Zip format is one popular option, but it’s far from the standard.

That said, we’ve come a long way since the days of ZIP and RAR, and we now have better ways to compress, encrypt, and transfer files. The RAR format was created to address some flaws in the ZIP format and comes with several benefits: smaller file sizes, the ability to split a RAR into multiple chunks, and error recovery. RAR stands for Roshal ARchive, named after Eugene Roshal, the Russian software engineer who created the format. That way, you only have to put one file up for download (or attach one file to an email), and receivers only need to download one file, instead of many separate ones. Both are “archive” file formats meant for compressing many individual files into one single file.

If you already know this, or if you just don’t care, feel free to skip down to the next section for the actual instructions.Ī RAR file is similar to a ZIP file. It’s called Archive Utility, and can be found via a Spotlight search.Opening RAR Files on Mac Made Easy What Is a RAR File? You can change the destination of your compressed files by opening the app that does the compression. How to make zip files save somewhere else You can use a free app such asįolderWasher to remove dot files before creating the zip. These are Mac system files and can be ignored. Note that Windows users decompressing your zip will also see ‘dot files’ – files and folders whose filenames are preceded by dots or sometimes underscores (such as ‘.DS_Store’ or ‘_MACOSX’). Once zipping has completed, drag the folder you created to the Trash. Then hold down Ctrl and click the folder, selecting the Compress option on the menu. Drag and drop the files you want to be in the zip, but hold down Alt before releasing the mouse button so the files are copied there. To compress several files and/or folders, create a new folder (Shift +Ĭmd + N) within Finder or on the desktop and name it whatever you want the zip to be called. You can delete the original file if you wish, but you won’t be able to view or use the zipped file in its present form: you’ll need to unzip it first. zip file can now be emailed to a friend or simply stored until needed.

Mac open rar files command line